Hospice services focus on living
By Amey Lupinsky, Indianapolis South LIVING WELL Magazine
Hospice is a philosophy of caring. Franciscan St. Francis affirms and celebrates life and regards dying as a natural process, recognizing that every person has the right to die with dignity, peace and comfort.
Our hospice care offers individuals with a life-limiting illness the choice to live as fully as possible by supporting the needs of the patient and family while promoting quality of life with dignity and respect. It allows the patient and family to be in control of their own plan of care when curative treatment is no longer appropriate. The hospice team works to relieve pain and unpleasant symptoms and ease the fears associated with the dying process. Hospice care represents a compassionate approach to end-of-life care, enhancing the quality of remaining life and enabling you to live as fully and as comfortably as possible in a familiar environment surrounded by family and friends. This can be as an inpatient, in a nursing care facility or other healthcare facility, in a hospice house or in your home.
To ensure that your family understands your wishes, it’s important to discuss your feelings with loved ones before a medical crisis strikes. When your loved ones are clear about your preferences for treatment, they’re free to devote their energy to care and compassion.
If you become unable to direct your own medical care because of illness, legal documents such as a living will, power of attorney, or advanced directive can set forth your wishes for future health care so your family members are all clear on your preferences.
Choosing to receive hospice care is sometimes difficult because of common misconceptions about when it’s appropriate and who pays for it. There is no age restriction with hospice care; anyone in the late stages of life is eligible for hospice services. Hospice care is covered by Medicare, Medicaid and most private insurance companies. Most insurance programs follow the Medicare Hospice Benefit requirements for hospice care.
Patients have the right to stop receiving hospice care at any time and for any reason. If a patient’s health improves or their illnesses go into remission while receiving hospice care, they can be discharged from hospice. If needed, they can later return to hospice care.
For many seriously ill patients, hospice care offers a more dignified and comfortable alternative to spending your final months in the impersonal environment of a hospital. Hospice provides special care to improve quality of life for both the patient and their family. Seeking hospice care isn’t about giving up hope or hastening death, but rather a way to get the most appropriate care and focus on living during the last phase of life.
As a part of our mission “to continue Christ’s ministry in our Franciscan tradition,” Franciscan St. Francis has been providing in-home hospice care for 20 years.
We would like to continue this mission by building a free-standing Hospice House which will make it possible for us to extend and deepen holistic end-of-life care in a compassionate, inpatient, home-like setting. To learn more about the St. Francis Campaign for Hospice House, To Comfort…Always, visit us online at givetohospice.org.
